Tall, Dark and Lethal (2 page)

“Maybe I think someone blew up the damn house on purpose because I saw the bastard aiming his grenade launcher. How is that?” Impatience showed in his words, but he didn’t care. He was supposed to be heading off to an important meeting with Abhi, dammit. A meeting he had put off for too long.

Or not long enough.

Had getting in touch with some of his old connections in the field triggered this attack? The timing was a little too close for comfort.

She was staring at him wide-eyed and speechless. Stayed that way for another full second. Had to be a record. “You—What? Who?”

“Damned if I know.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. “But we are not going back there until I figure out what’s going on.”

A few seconds of silence passed while she mulled that over. He expected her to issue another passionate argument for returning. But when she finally spoke, all she said was, “I don’t have clothes on.” And she crossed her arms in front of her.

Soft, silky skin and barely concealed curves.
Just keep looking at the road.

“I noticed that.” Yes, sir. Certainly had. He cleared his throat before he chanced another glance at her.

Pink washed over her cheeks.

Wasn’t she just a surprise and a half? Looked like having her house blown up brought her defenses down.

His house, too. The full implications fully registered. His hideout. The one place he’d felt sure he would be safe. Where he’d planned on starting over.

Apparently not. A four-letter word slipped from his mouth with some vehemence.

She glared at him, but sirens sounding in the distance claimed her attention. “Who wants you dead?” she asked after a minute.

He considered the endless list in his head as he pulled out of the maze of developments and onto Route 1. The last batch of terrorists he’d tangled with had certainly promised to hunt him down and kill him like a dog. But they were only the latest addition to a large group. His occupation was what you’d call “conflict heavy.”

“Then again, the
who doesn’t
list is probably shorter,” she said, without waiting for his answer.

He bit back a grin. Her griping got on his nerves more often than not, but there was a sassy side to her that he found entertaining. Half the time he wanted her to win a trip to the moon. What he wanted the other half of the time was what kept him up at night.

Her bedroom was now fixed in his brain.
Pink silk sheets.
He could have lived without knowing that. Fortunately, he didn’t have much time to ponder it.

He considered the events of the morning. How much of what he knew and who he was should he share with her? As little as possible. He didn’t think she’d feel better if he told her that the tangos didn’t want him dead—yet. Otherwise they would have hit his bedroom and not the garage.

Two single garages sat side by side in the front of the duplex, right in the middle. From the speed with which the second explosion followed the first, it was clear to Cade that the hit went straight to the garage and then ignited the C4. Losing that hurt more than losing the house. Not that he thought the tangos knew he had an explosive stash. They just wanted to hit something other than the bedroom and give Cade time to rush outside so they could pick him up in the confusion.

But he’d seen them in time and made it out. And then, before they could come after him, they had been rocked by the second explosion. Their van was close to the house—just across the road. If Bailey weren’t with him, he could have gone back to check it out. Could be it had sustained damage and was still stuck there.

Could be they had a backup plan and he would be walking straight into it.

He pulled the phone from his pocket and checked his missed call. The Colonel, head of the Special Designation Defense Unit. Just the man he needed to talk to. He hit the dial button.

“Sir, I have a small problem. I need to come in,” he said as soon as the Colonel picked up. “I’m not alone.” He could have dropped Miss Scream-and-Holler off at her nearest friend’s house, but she needed to be read the riot act about the confidentiality of what had gone down this morning. As far as her neighbors would be concerned, the explosion
had
been a damn gas leak.

Someone would take care of Bailey to ensure that she was fully aware of the gravity of the situation as well as run a background check on her before they released her. Not that they would find much of interest. He had run a check himself before he had moved into their duplex.

He would go underground for a while. The SDDU, from which he had recently retired, had safe rooms available on various army bases around the country, as well as safe houses in the civilian world. He’d be directed to one where he could recoup and rearm so he could start figuring out what was going on.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” the Colonel said, his tone grimmer than hell in a heat wave. And he hadn’t even heard all the bad news for the morning yet.

“Somebody just blew up my house.” Straight to the point always worked best with the Colonel. “Any chance of getting a list of everyone I’ve done business with who has entered the country in the past six months?”

He could hear the man draw a slow breath. “You bet. Not that I can think of any off the top of my head.”

That didn’t bode well. The Colonel kept a close eye on the comings and goings of anyone on their tagged list.

“Could be they came through the southern border without us knowing, or through one of the ports,” Cade said, thinking out loud.

“It’s a possibility,” he acknowledged. A moment of silence passed. “A month out of the action and you’re looking for trouble already? I thought you said you were going for the quiet life.”

Cade shifted in his seat. “I was, sir. But it looks like the past isn’t finished with me yet.” The Colonel didn’t need to know that he’d been staging his very last—private—op for weeks. He didn’t want to drag anyone into that with him.

“How could anyone find you?
I
don’t even know where you are.”

An exaggeration. The Colonel knew everything. Or could find out in a hurry. “No idea yet, sir, but I’ll figure it out.”

When his cover had been blown in Southeast Asia a little over four months ago, and his life further complicated by shrapnel in his lungs, he’d been retired from undercover commando work at the age of forty. A retirement his enemies seemed unwilling to honor. He couldn’t blame them. He’d done some damage in his day.

But he hadn’t thought he would be found, not this fast. He had counted on having enough time to take care of his unfinished business with that bastard Smith before he would have to disappear again.

He
hadn’t even known about the uncle who had left him half of a duplex in Pennsylvania. His grandmother had had an older son out of wedlock that she had never told her husband and daughter about. A son who, apparently, had died not long ago with no children of his own, so Cade ended up with the house. And he’d received his payoff from the SDDU in cash. He hadn’t been to a bank since he’d been shipped back stateside from the military hospital in Germany. Hadn’t used credit cards, hadn’t returned to his old home or any of his properties to retrieve as much as a coffee cup, hadn’t gotten his car out of storage. He might as well have died on that last mission and never returned to the U.S. No one knew where he was.

Except the tangos who had just blown up his house.

“Where can I go, sir? What’s open?” The sooner he got off the road, the sooner he could start investigating, the sooner he could take care of the men in the van and get back to the op he’d been planning. Which would now be delayed, dammit. Didn’t look like he would be catching up with Smith today after all.

Bailey pulled her legs up to hug her knees. She needed to put some decent clothes on. He tried not to look at her toned legs. She was barefoot, her toenails done in pink.

He wasn’t sure he could take any more pink this morning. Fortunately, she quickly released her knees and set her feet down.

“Do not come in.” The Colonel enunciated each word.

That snapped him back to business. “Sir?”

“The FBI is looking for you. There was an Agent Rubliczky here at the crack of dawn. He’s not happy. That’s why I called earlier.”

“What do they want now?” He had left the FBI for the SDDU under less than amicable circumstances that included an inside, undercover job to find a leak. His work had ruffled a lot of feathers at the Bureau. He knew Rubliczky by reputation. The man worked domestic terrorism. His blood ran cold at the implications.
Son of a bitch.

“I’m being set up?” It seemed impossible for someone there to carry a grudge this long. He’d left the Bureau nearly a decade ago.

“They think you’re involved in something. It’s pretty bad, Cade. They are out for blood. They are also talking about a Bailey Preston. Who is she to you?”

A distraction the magnitude of which could barely be expressed. “We shared the same duplex. She has nothing to do with this.” He stole a glance at her from the corner of his eye and couldn’t help noticing her nipples nearly pushing through the thin silk top. He liked to think he was a pretty disciplined guy, but still, he was only a man.

“You’re sure? She could be into…whatever. Could even be a foreign asset.”

Against his better judgment, he looked at Bailey full on. He’d been in this business long enough to be a fair judge of character. “Not possible.”

“She is on their list, too. Could be dangerous.”

He watched as she twisted an arm around, looking straight ahead and trying to keep him from noticing that she was working on pulling up the door lock, yanking it hard enough to nearly break it off. Her jerky movements were giving her full breasts a soft bounce. And he knew exactly what they would feel like moving against his palms.

“It would be better if you stayed put for a while until I figure out what’s going on,” the Colonel was saying.

Stay put where? All he had was the Escalade, which could be reported stolen any minute. He couldn’t go back to the duplex—or to any of his other properties. He couldn’t go to the law, and he couldn’t stay on the road. There were some badass terrorists looking for him, along with the FBI. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, he had his ill-tempered neighbor in the silk pajamas to worry about.

He’d run for his life many times before, but never with a half-naked woman in tow. Most guys he knew would say the addition of a half-naked woman would improve just about any situation a man could get into.

She flashed him a look sharp enough to peel skin, her blue-violet eyes throwing thunderbolts once again. Her normally generous lips tightened to a thin line as she forced her words through them. “I’m going to sue you for this.”

Those guys had never met Bailey Preston, that’s for sure.

“Take me home or take me to the nearest police station. Your pick,” Bailey said for the umpteenth time, raising her voice a smidgen, which made no difference whatsoever. Talking to Cade Palmer was like talking to her garden statuettes, or to her sixteen-year-old nephew, Zak, who was going through yet another difficult phase. Poor kid.

She was willing to cut Zak some slack. But not Cade. Cade was a grown man who should be held responsible for his actions.

“Who are you, anyway?” Even sitting down, she had to look up at him. He was a head taller, built but lean, and irritating as anything.

She was starting to suspect that he wasn’t the computer programmer he’d claimed to be. People didn’t come after computer programmers with grenade launchers. Then there was all that “yes, sir; no, sir” business on the phone, and him wanting to “come in.”

He was looking in the rearview mirror and ignoring her. Straight nose, strong jawline and short-cropped dark brown hair. He had a singular focus and an easy grace to his lean body.

“Are you in the witness protection program?”

He took forever to respond. “Kind of.”

Oh, God.
Anger flooded her circuits. He had no right to drag her into his dirty business. “Could you be any vaguer?”

“You bet.” He looked at her with his caramel brown eyes, which were fringed with thick, dark lashes. “There’s a confidentiality issue.”

What on earth had she ever done to deserve this from the universe?

She had to be honest—she didn’t much care for the man. He was insufferable for the most part, the kind of neighbor people prayed wouldn’t move in next door. She did her best not to let him get a rise out of her with every outrageous act or comment—and failed often. And she had trained herself not to ogle or respond to his magnificent body, not even if he purposely taunted her by mowing the lawn in nothing but a pair of tattered blue jeans. But his eyes got to her every time. And there was no avoiding them, because if she dropped her gaze, she was confronted with his mile-wide chest.

“It’s for your own protection,” he added.

“I don’t want your kind of protection.” She was lucky he hadn’t killed her when they’d jumped from the balcony. Her heart raced all over again just thinking about it. Or maybe she just hadn’t had a chance to calm down fully yet.

He had stepped up on her railing—which she should have replaced when she’d installed the French doors, but had run out of money—and then he had stepped out into nothing.
Air.
His arms had been like steel brackets around her. For a surreal moment, he had morphed into some kind of action hero. Or villain. She hadn’t quite decided yet which one.

“I don’t want to go with you.”

“Too bad,” he said, without looking at her.

That was
so
like the man. Stubborn and rude. Insufferable. From the moment he had moved in, they had fought over everything, from the noise she made working in her garage to the oil his car leaked all over the driveway. He’d claimed her music was too loud. He’d knocked over her favorite flagpole and flat out refused to fix it. He might have a great body and gorgeous eyes, but manners he had none.

He’d had the gall to yell at Zak for tapping into his wireless. Why? It didn’t cost him any extra if Zak used it. She had dial-up, but Zak had wanted something faster. The troubled teen—who, by the way, was a computer genius, but would Cade notice that and take him under his wing a little? Oh, noooo—did deserve some distraction when his life as he knew it was falling apart. Cade Palmer was selfish and mean to kids.

And
a kidnapper.

“You can’t take me God knows where against my will. Explain to me why we can’t go to the police.”

“This is beyond the police. As soon as I can be sure that it’s safe to let you go, I will. Put on your seat belt.”

So she couldn’t easily jump from the car when he stopped for a light? Not a chance. “What do you mean, beyond the police?”

He ignored her, which made her want to beat him over the head with something. Just her luck that he’d stolen a car without as much as a baseball bat on the backseat. “Where are we going?”

He took a sharp turn, and she slid hard into the door. She shot him a glare before reaching for her seat belt.

“Stay low.” He picked up speed, then took two turns in quick succession, watching the rearview mirror more closely than the road ahead of them.

Oh.
Her mouth went dry as she gripped her seat. All she could think of was the way he had said “grenade launcher” with that dark look on his face just a short while ago. Her heart skipped a beat. “Are they following us?”

Long moments passed before he responded, slowing the car at last. “We’re fine. For a second I thought—”

“You gave me a heart attack for nothing?” She went for the door lock again. When he reached over and grabbed her hand, she shoved hard against him. Not that he took any notice. “Want to tell me where you’re taking me?”

“We need a new car and some weapons.” He pulled up to the post office and parked.

How did they get here? Clearly, he knew more back roads than she did. Maybe he wasn’t as new to the neighborhood as he’d claimed. Although she’d never seen him before he’d shown up three months ago just to annoy her to death.

“Come on. We’re going in.”

“In pajamas? Barefoot?” Her mind suddenly caught up with what he’d said. “Weapons?” Her voice was a touch weaker on that last word.

“It’s not even seven in the morning. Nobody is going to be in there. You’re fine.”

Obviously he wasn’t the kind of man who worried much about propriety. But he was right; the building was empty. The post office wasn’t open yet, but the room with the P.O. boxes was. He went straight to the stainless-steel sorting table that housed forms of all sizes and colors, reached under it, searched for a second and then came up with a small key. He opened one of the larger, business-size P.O. boxes on the opposite wall and retrieved a box that held a black gym bag.

Once they returned to the car, he tossed the bag in the back and indicated that she should get in. “You should be able to find something in there to wear. You can change here.”

Huh?

Getting naked with Cade Palmer nearby wasn’t on her it-might-happenin-this-lifetime list. Although there had been that dream…. Okay, maybe more than one. But she was not going to think about them—not now, not ever. She opened the bag and saw a soft, extra-large T-shirt on top. She would be less conspicuous in that than in her slinky pajama top.

“Fine. Don’t look.” She turned her back to him.

He started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “I try not to make promises I can’t keep.”

She could tell from his voice that he was grinning.

Insufferable.

She grabbed the bottom of her top. Stalled. Looked back at him. He lifted his gaze to the rearview mirror.

“Don’t look!”

“You turned around. I thought you wanted something from me.” He turned his attention back to the road. She was right—he
was
grinning.

She yanked her silk top off. No big deal. He had probably seen a naked woman or two before, anyway. It would have been easier to leave the top on under the T-shirt, but it was the middle of a heat wave, the temperature nearing ninety already—not a day for layers.

She glanced down at her body. With his long T-shirt on top, the silk shorts almost passed for street wear. She dug into the bag, hoping for something for her feet. Her soles were scratched and bruised from him dragging her—barefoot—through all that landscaping.

Flip-flops would have been great. Instead, she found a Ziploc bag full of IDs and bank cards, and a wad of cash held together by a rubber band.

And a gun.

Her fingertips went cold, the air suddenly froze in her lungs, and clothing became the least of her problems. His mentioning weapons was one thing; sitting next to a nasty-looking firearm was another. It brought the severity of her situation into sharp focus.

“I’ll take that.” He held his hand out and, when after a moment of hesitation, she gingerly gave him the gun, he said, “See if you can find some bullets in the front pocket.”

She did. A whole box of them. She handed them over, and he started to load the handgun without slowing down or taking his eyes off the road, driving with one elbow. Like he was one of those guys in spy movies who practice taking apart and putting together their weapons while blindfolded. If she weren’t so scared, she would have been impressed.

She considered staying in the backseat, as far from him as possible. But she had questions, and she wanted to look at his face while he answered them to see if he was lying to her.

She climbed to the front, nearly knocking him out with her left knee when she slipped—which she didn’t feel too bad about, to be honest—then fastened herself in. First things first. “Why is the Mafia after you?” She braced herself for some grizzly story. It had to be something pretty serious.

He gave her a blank look.

“Witness protection?” she prompted.

The tanned skin around his caramel eyes crinkled. “I never said anything about the Mafia.”

She thought back. True. She’d assumed.

“You did witness a crime, right? That’s how people get into witness protection.” What did she know about that, anyway? Whatever she’d seen on TV. And real cops always said how those shows were wildly inaccurate.

Still, if he was in the program, there had to be a good reason for it. She hoped he wasn’t a criminal who’d rolled over on his buddies. She pulled as far away from him as possible without being too obvious about it, and put on the best poker face she could, preparing for his answer.

“I’m not in witness protection.”

She glared. “You said—”

“I said
kind of.
”

She really should have asked more questions
before
she handed him the gun. Oh, God. She’d just armed the man who had kidnapped her. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She was so far out of her element, she couldn’t keep up, couldn’t think fast enough. She had to start using her head to gain some information and make some decisions. “Any ideas on who is after you?” Would he tell her?

“Take your pick. Could be a drug lord, weapons smugglers, terrorists…”

Okay, so that was probably the truth. Nobody would make up a list like that. The options were enough to give anyone heart palpitations, yet he was oddly nonchalant. Like a professional. He did know how to handle that gun. He was either a bad guy who’d ticked off some other bad guys, or a good guy with a lot of enemies. She decided to be optimistic. She desperately needed some hope to cling to, even if for only a few more moments. “You were in law enforcement?”

Say yes. Please say yes.

“Kind of.”

Her nerves were as frayed as the cuffs of his jeans. “If you say
kind of
one more time, I’m going to scream.”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” he said, humor glinting in his eyes.

He thought this was funny? The man lived to drive her crazy. Swear to God, if she had a grenade launcher…

She caught herself. She believed in a universe that could be influenced by positive and negative thoughts. In the situation she was in, there was no sense thinking violent thoughts. She closed her eyes for a moment and briefly envisioned getting away from the man.

He pulled into the parking lot of a diner, which, unlike the post office lot, looked fairly full.

DeDe’s was a plain, square clapboard building that never made it into visitors’ guides. Tourists who came to Chadds Ford to discover the country’s colonial past wouldn’t have looked at it twice, anyway. But the food was divine, which made it a favorite meeting place for locals. She used to have breakfast here with her grandmother every Sunday, before she’d passed.

She closed her eyes for a moment and drew a deep breath. “What are we doing here?”

“Getting breakfast.” He was checking out the lot carefully.

“How can you eat at a time like this?”

He shrugged. “If you don’t eat, you won’t have the strength to face whatever comes next.”

He had a very pragmatic view of eating. Judging from his lean body, he’d never spent a day of his life overeating, or dieting, or wrought with emotion that made ice cream a necessity, for that matter. “I don’t think I can eat right now.”

“You can always give it a try. A sandwich and orange juice?”

“Okay. And coffee.” Although if there were ever a morning when she was wide-awake without caffeine, this would be it. Still, old habits died harder than Duracell batteries. And caffeine wasn’t just about waking up. It was her comfort food of choice. Among others. Suddenly she could have killed for a bag of Cheetos.

Not that there was a chance of getting Cheetos out of Cade. She’d seen his grocery bags before—he was a health nut. He shopped at Trader Joe’s.

“You stay here.” He scanned the parking lot one more time before starting out. “I’ll get it to go.”

She watched him walk to the front door and hold it open for a group of old ladies. He trusted her to stay put. He really had seemed competent until now. So competent that she was beginning to feel dejected about her chances of getting away from him.
Well, everybody makes mistakes.

She was out of the SUV the second the door closed behind him. And she nearly got run over by the cop car pulling into the lot.

H
E THOUGHT HE’D LOST
Palmer, but spotted him in that SUV by accident and thanked his lucky stars for it. Luck had always been on his side. And why not? Luck favored the prepared mind. Wasn’t that what they said? And he always was prepared.

So was Cade Palmer, it seemed. He’d escaped that explosion. That had been a surprise in the middle of his morning surveillance. He’d been checking out the house, making his own plans. He wouldn’t have minded if someone else took care of Palmer. He wasn’t vain that way, didn’t take his business personally like some others he knew—no sense in that. Whatever way the man was rubbed out was fine with him.

As he had stalked closer, he’d watched the woman Palmer left in the car. He wanted Palmer, but he could settle for her now. Palmer would come after her—he could never resist saving everyone in sight and then some. He would have grabbed her were it not for the damn cop who came at the worst moment, when he was a few feet from the Escalade and she was looking in the opposite direction, not having a clue.